"Please ('ic!) please your worship I chanced to light upon a find. But no m (e-uck!) matter 'bout that. There's b ('ic!) been another find which— —beg pardon yer honours, what was that th ('ic!) thing that ripped by here first?"
"It was the Vernal Equinox."
"Inf ('ic!) fernal equinox. 'At's all right.—D ('ic!) Dunno him. What's other one?"
"The transit of Venus."
"G ('ic!) Got me again. No matter. Las' one dropped something."
"Ah, indeed! Good luck! Good news! Quick—what is it?"
"M ('ic!) Mosey out 'n' see. It'll pay."
No more votes were taken for four and twenty hours. Then the following entry was made:
"The commission went in a body to view the find. It was found to consist of a hard, smooth, huge object with a rounded summit surmounted by a short upright projection resembling a section of a cabbage stalk divided transversely—This projection was not solid, but was a hollow cylinder plugged with a soft woody substance unknown to our region—that is, it had been so plugged, but unfortunately this obstruction had been heedlessly removed by Norway Rat, Chief of the Sappers and Miners, before our arrival. The vast object before us so mysteriously conveyed from the glittering domains of space, was found to be hollow and nearly filled with a pungent liquid of a brownish hue, like rain-water that has stood for some
